Using Facebook to Promote my Engraving Business?

[Bill Stearns]

Hi All -
I would like to hear your thoughts regarding my using Facebook as a way to promote my laser engraving business. ('bout your experiences, if you do use it yourself.) I am not interested in having a "personal page" - just a "no-cost" page for promoting my business. Also: I'm not interested in paying for an actual advertising page; it appears that you can. I notice my competitors are using Facebook; showing off photos of their products 'n all. While I imagine I'd draw 'lot of positive feedback, I worry 'bout someone vindictively writing a mean-spirited, negative, message. Can't ever remove it, right? Also, should I be worrying 'bout viruses? Don't want' a get into something overly time-consuming 'n non-productive. Have you had good results using Facebook?

Bill

[Tim Bateson]

Yes/No/Maybe - The answer all depends if Social Media really impacts your business. I know of people who use Facebook instead of a real web site, others like myself just use it to show off our work.
In my case, I would say it's nice, but has little to do with driving work for me. My website on the other-hand - invaluable.

[David Somers]

Morning Bill!

I hate Facebook with a passion. The idea is great, but their constantly changing privacy rules and whatnot drive me crazy. I maintain a personal account simply because I have 2 people I follow on Facebook since that is pretty much the only way they communicate. Otherwise, it is blank and locked down so tight it squeaks.

But in many ways you are right. A business Facebook appears to be useful and in some ways, expected. I have one set up now for eventual use, but am not using it at this point.

You are correct in that you have no control over reviews in a business page. And Facebook will not delete them for you if requested. You can respond to each, but if someone is pounding you with flamed reviews it can become a real time sink, and it does affect your ranking listing. The idea of a facebook business page with reviews is a good one in that it can show the positives, and also show negatives and how you responded to a complaint quickly, cheerfully and fully. But the nonsense reviews can become a problem when you can't control them.

You can setup a business page and disable the reviews by doing the following.
You have to uncheck the box to show the Map app in the settings, under "Address", which removes the reviews app as well.
Edit Page/ Edit Page Info/ click on 'address'/ uncheck the box underneath the map
This fix prevents the use of ANY reviews however, and that is a modest part of what folks look for when going to your Facebook Page.

Another way to think about this of course is to consider Amazon and its customer reviews. Assuming you use Amazon how do you make use of the reviews? In my case, I will look at a product, then look at the ranking summary overall. Then I will look at the bar graph of the summary to see how many low reviews have been given versus high end. And then I will start browsing through the reviews and see what is being said about the product. Depending on what I see I may dig further on the web for more information and other review sources. I may look at the product harder. And if I see confirmation that the reviews were valid and not just a flaming operation I will likely avoid it and look for a different brand or product. I use the reviews as a first indicator, but don't base my decision on them alone most of the time. Facebook is the same way. You can respond to each review. So if I look at a facebook review and see negatives I will go through them the same way and see what is going on, and dig further afield for more information if the warning flags are getting raised by what I read.

If control is what concerns you with Facebook, you might look instead at setting up a blog. Most blogs will permit you to allow 3rd party postings. And when that is allowed you have control over the responses. If you get flamed inappropriately and want to delete it you can. In a blog you can also have photos and descriptions and narratives entered by date. They can be pretty flexible and attractive, and like Facebook, they are usually free.

Hope that helps a bit Bill!

Dave
PS....do a search in Google on "how do you remove reviews from your facebook business page" You will find a number of hits. They don't offer a fix at all, other than to turn off the reviews feature like I describe. But they will usually have some discussions by people about the issues they see with it. that might help you decide if you want to have Reviews active at all in the first place. You can always turn them on later if demand is there.

[Chris DeGerolamo]

As an admin, you should/would be able to remove comments and posts. Years back I participated in a FB giveaway where participants were required to like a certain number of pages in order to enter. Gained +1K likes. So, what does that mean for me? It's another avenue for folks to find our services and a real-time way for us to engage potential customers. I've had folks message me for work through the page. Considering all that I put into it is a bit of time to post here and there, ROI has been good. FWIW, I never paid for advertising on FB, or bought likes.

[Bob WrightNC]

Although, I haven't participated much in the forum, I do know and use facebook quite a bit and we've had pretty good success with it. To me, it really depends on who you are targeting. If your customers are female 18-44, then you're in the sweet spot for facebook usage. The key to using facebook is to have engagement, or people interacting with your page. Without engagement, the algorithms work against you and not many people will actually see what you post. Of course, facebook really likes your page when you boost post, i.e., paid advertising. But done correctly, it may be some of the most effective advertising you can get simply because you can target the demographic who you boost the ad to. Let's say women 18-64 and you pick the towns within a 30 mile radius of your location. That's pretty specific and when done correctly it will generate traffic. People talk about buying likes, but to me, if I can get in front of someone in my demographic within 50 miles of our business and show them what I have to offer, you can't beat it. Like alot of things, being effective on facebook takes time to learn what to do and how to do it. But when you post and someone comes in from the grocery across the street because they see what you just posted, I promise you'll understand how effective it can be.

[Jason Hilton]

A facebook page can be a valuable addition to your business's online presence as long as it's well maintained and part of an overall promotional strategy. Facebook pages should be well integrated with your web site. You should have a plan for how you'll engage users, what kind of enticements you can offer to bring them to your facebook page, and ideas for how you'll capitalize on that unique audience. Just "having a facebook page" is worthless if it doesn't bring you business, and in order to bring in business you need to engage your customers. A vacant or ill maintained facebook page can give an exponentially negative impression compared to a well maintained, often updated page. A good rule of thumb is to post at least once every day, preferably at high traffic times, and most essentially, with topical posts designed to entice or engage your potential customers. For example, one of my clients is a photographer. She posts photos, links to photos, and other photography related posts 1-3 times daily, and occasionally peppers in promotions, coupon codes for her online store, or referrals to affiliate services she's partnered with. There are a lot of creative ways to use facebook to drive new and return business, and if you pursue it you probably find new opportunities and product ideas that would otherwise have never occurred to you.

In terms of vindictive reviews and negative feedback, I wouldn't worry too much about it. Facebook has very robust moderation tools in place for page administrators. You'll be able to control what posts and comments show up on your page.

[Scott Shepherd]

We're pretty much all business to business. I can't recall any business customer that came to us from Facebook. I would imagine if you are doing retail or consumer level service, it might be much more valuable, but for me, the vast majority of my customers don't go to Facebook when looking for suppliers.

[David Somers]

Jason and Chris,

Would love to know where the controls are for removing posts in a business account. I had gone into my account before writing to be sure I didnt see controls, and then did searches in facebook and on the web looking for reference to them. Everything said no deletion ability?

Thanks for setting me straight you two!

Bill....my apologies for leading you astray if my info was wrong!

Dave

[Bill Stearns]

THANKS for your helpful input, guys! - 'bout my possibly using Facebook. Thinking, now, Ill be better off devoting my time to improving my web site 'stead. I re-examined my competitors' FB pages - see where many of their top of the list "comments & reviews" - even product photos - go back 'least a year, or two! Which left me with a bad impression. I can clearly see what some of you meant by having to update pages frequently - if one chooses to use Facebook. On the other hand: I'd like to know more 'bout "Blogs" - mentioned earlier - 'cause I do enjoy writing 'bout my business 'n customers 'n all. Anybody using one? Also, wondering: does SMC allow us to examine each others web sites - to give each other advice 'n ideas? If so - how? Thanks again - now, back to the drawing board!- oops! I mean my Epilog!

Bill

[Jason Hilton]

Ah, having reread I realize we were discussing 2 different things. Reviews can only be disabled or enabled and replied to. Posts to your page can be hidden or removed at will. You can also moderate certain words and profanity automatically.

By the way, if you want to be able to remove negative reviews there are 3rd party review apps you can add to your page. You can disable facebook's included review functionality and add a 3rd party review tab that you can completely control. Additionally, if you are worried about negative spam reviews facebook is very liberal about removing them upon request as long as you can convince them the negative review is malicious.

[Jason Hilton]

Bill,

Check out wordpress.com, blogspot.com, or google "blog platform" to learn more about dedicating blog platforms on the web. Professionally speaking I would suggest upgrading your website and including a blog there. Search-wise you'll generate more indexing traffic by posting frequently on your own site, which will ultimately drive more traffic to your business.

[David Somers]

Bill,

Jason is on the mark with his blog comments. It can be a flexible and attractive way to communicate. And if you choose to permit other people to post to it you have control of the posts if needed. One blog I have always liked is by a very well respected woodturner by the name of Andi Wolfe. Her blog is not tied strictly to her turning though and instead covers a lot of her interests. She also has a web site by her full name.com. A fast google search will find her for you. Blogs can be pretty interesting, particularly if you can get good people involved in conversing about things on it to help maintain interest. Otherwise, like a web page, it is entirely up to you to keep it moving so people return to it often.

I don't think SMC wants us to post web pages here, for a variety of good reasons. But I will PM you a page link and some other info. You might just ask folks here to PM you with their pages if they care to share and think it fits what you are looking for.

Depending on what you are selling, you might also look at something like Etsy as a sales point. Though again, to make something like Etsy work you need to keep on top of it in terms of good presentation, accurate listings, prompt service, etc. Facebook, web pages, and blogs can fit in with Etsy quite nicely. Each one you add increases your exposure, and of course, each one you add increases your workload in terms of keeping it up.

Jason....thanks for clarifying! I was beginning to doubt my sanity for a bit there when you said there were admin tools in Facebook. Glad we were talking about different aspects of Facebook and I was using my facebook terms the wrong way! Whew! <grin>

Dave

[David Somers]

Bill,

Almost forgot. If you search in the forum you will find a number of lengthy threads in the last 6 months or so that discussed the merits of things like web pages and adverts and what not. Might be of interest to you. Most folks offering typical laser services seem to have found that adverts were not really worth the time and money, and web pages often did little as well. Most of their business was word of mouth. There were variations of course, but I seem to remember the bulk of folks just found it netted them little business for a lot of time. And once you let it get behind and out of date it can be a deterrent more than anything.

Dave

[Jason Hilton]

David touched on something above I think is very important. The kind of business you're in has a huge effect on the kind of marketing you use and rely on. Small businesses who focus on B2B business rely on their websites for very different reasons than end-customer producers.

Web presence has to start at business definition.

What kind of business are you doing? Who are your customers? How do they shop, what do they buy? What customer-base do you want to serve that you don't now? A company that does only trophies might find an online store cumbersome and unsuccessful because their customers don't shop for trophies online, they pick up the phone. Whereas someone producing exclusively custom products will find accessing a larger customerbase is easier with a well defined and diversified web presence.

[David Somers]

Bill,

Sorry, one more thought. If the items you want to sell fit on Etsy The folks who make the Idiots Guide series have a decent book on it and how to work Facebook and Blogs and Web Pages to help it. The Complete Idiot;s Guide to selling your crafts on Etsy by Marcia Turner. You can get it as a Kindle book if you want, and I assume your library can get it as well. It has been helpful as a way to learn some of the ins and outs of Etsy and to help me determine if it might be a good tool ultimately or not. You can probably get those from your library too. That might help you piece this all together. They will also have guides to Facebook, search engine optimization (SEO) and other topics related to this that might help.

Dave